first-rate man. He will find out what is the matter, and put you right
again in no time."

"He can't put new works into an old machine. Not even the cleverest
doctor can do that. The springs are giving out, Peg, and I can only be
repaired, not cured. I don't expect to be made well, but I want to keep
going if possible, for the sake of Austin and the children. I have been
intending to pay this visit for a year back, but I kept putting it off
and off. I was afraid of what he might say."

"Nonsense! Afraid, indeed! He'll laugh at your fears, and give you a
tonic which will make you perfectly well again."

Mrs Asplin smiled, and was silent. Twenty-one could not be expected to
realise the weakness and pain which come as companions, and not as
guests; the weakness which must grow greater instead of less; the pain
which cannot be charmed away. It is not to be wished that it should,
for youthful optimism has its own work to accomplish in the world; but
it would tend to a better understanding between old and young, if the
latter would remember that it is the lack of hope which makes the
bitterest drop in the cup of age! To bear the weary ache, and know that
it will grow worse; to feel one power after another slipping away, and
to realise that it is for ever; to be lonely, and to see the loneliness
closing in ever deeper and deeper. Ah, think of it, young impatient
soul! Think of it and be tender, be loving! Spare not the sweet gift
of sympathy. The time will come when you will long to have done still
more.

Peggy held Mrs Asplin's hand in her own as they sat waiting together in
the doctor's study, and kept her seat sturdily through the interview
which followed. She felt instinctively that her presence was a support
to her friend, and that the consciousness of her sympathy was a support
during the trying ordeal. The doctor questioned, and the patient
replied. He scanned her face with his practised eyes, felt her pulse,
and produced a stethoscope from the table. Then for a time there was
silence, while he knelt and listened, and listened again, and Peggy
heard her own heart throb through the silence. He was an old man, with
an expression full of that large tenderness which seems the birthmark of
the true physician, and he lingered over his task, as if unwilling to
face what lay beyond. At last he rose and laid the stethoscope
carefully on the table, letting his fingers linger over the task. Peggy
heard hi